tone. "The eating orifice is oddly placed, and the teeth are obviously for grinding purposes."

"I was thinking more of the method of locomotion," Dodeth said. "I believe this is a record, although I'll have to look in the files to make sure. I think that six locomotive limbs is the least I've ever heard of on an animal that size."

"I've checked the files," said Wygor. "There was a four-limbed leaf-eater recorded seven hundred years ago—four locomotive limbs, that is, and two grasping. But it was only as big as your hand."

Dodeth looked through the three pages of the booklet. There wasn't much there, really, but he knew Wygor well enough to know that all the data he had thus far was there. The only thing that rankled was that Wygor had delayed for three work periods before reporting the intrusion of the new beast, and now five of them had been spotted.

He looked at the page which showed the three bathygraphs that had been taken of the new animals from a distance. There was something odd about them, and Dodeth couldn't, for the hide of him, figure out what it was. It aroused an odd fear in him, and made him want to burrow deeper into the ground.

"I can't see what keeps 'em from falling over," he said at last. "Are they as slow-moving as they look?"

"They don't move very fast," Wygor admitted, "but we haven't seen any of them startled yet. I don't see how they could run very fast, though. It must take every bit of awareness they have to stay balanced on two legs."

Dodeth sighed whistlingly and pushed the data booklet back across the business bench to Wygor. "All right; I'll file the preliminary spotting report. Now get out there and get me some pertinent data on this queer beast. Scramble off."

"Right away, sir."

"And ... Wygor—"

"Yes, sir?"

"It's apparent that we have a totally new species here. It will be called a wygorex, of course, but it would be better if we waited until we could make a full report to the Keepers. So don't let any of this out—especially to the other Septs."

"Certainly not, sir; not a whistle. Anything else?"

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